The Red Cross Games and the Early NCAA-NIT Relationship
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Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, 2012, 5, 260-280 © 2012 Human Kinetics, Inc. www.JIS-Journal.com ARTICLE A Tale of Two Tournaments: The Red Cross Games and the Early NCAA-NIT Relationship Chad Carlson Eastern Illinois University The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between the National Invi- tational Tournament (NIT) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). To do so, the author explores the Red Cross War Benefit Games, which pitted the champions of the two tournaments against one another, with the proceeds benefit- ing the Red Cross. These contests represented the only times the two tournaments or their teams interacted. The author explores the Games’ significance and the manner in which they helped propel the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to preeminent status. Keywords: basketball, NIT, charity, championship, New York City In 2005, the New York-based National Invitation college basketball tournament (NIT) charged the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) with violat- ing antitrust laws. Following legal arbitration, the NCAA settled with the NIT, purchased its rights, and effectively placed it in the hands of an organization with whom it had been competing for decades (Litsky, 2005). This settlement marked the final step in the slow relegation of the NIT championship to second-class status behind the NCAA tournament. This settlement also marked the end of a complex relationship between NIT and NCAA tournament organizers that began with the inception of the champion- ships in the late 1930s. One central and well-known event sits at the nexus of this relationship. In 1951, college basketball found itself in the thick of a widespread gambling and point-shaving scandal involving players and teams hosted at New York’s Madison Square Garden—the home venue for the NIT and a frequent host for NCAA championship games. As a result, public trust in the purity of college basketball waned. Subsequently, the NCAA distanced itself from Madison Square Garden and the New York-based NIT (see Fitzpatrick, 2000 and Rosen, 1978 for more information on the 1951 scandals). Yet little has been written about the relationship between the NCAA and NIT leading up to this well-known event. What was the nature of the relationship from the onset of the NIT in 1938 and the inaugural NCAA tournament in 1939? Before the Carlson is with the Kinesiology and Sports Studies Dept., Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL. 260 Tale of Two Tournaments 261 scandal, many believed that the NIT was the premier event and the NCAA champi- onship held a lower status. Nevertheless, that belief may not have been completely accurate since the NCAA and NIT championships both established reputations of providing high caliber basketball as they shared New York City’s “Garden” and the prestigious fan base in the media capital of the world during much of the 1940s. Within this decade college basketball tournaments, like many other social and cultural establishments in America, rallied during the war years with an unparalleled collective vision whereby many of those in power relegated petty personal issues for the greater good of the country and its citizens. In New York City, the NIT and NCAA cooperated with Madison Square Garden to host Red Cross War Fund charity basketball games. These “mythical national championship games” (Effrat, 1943) pitted the victors of the two tournaments at season’s end from 1943 to 1945 with proceeds going to the Red Cross’ War Fund (“Game Nets,” 1943). These three Red Cross games represent the only times in which the two tournaments intermingled, and they seemingly only did so to aid the Red Cross war efforts. After the war college basketball tournament organizers proved unable to rekin- dle the cooperative attitude that pervaded American society during the war. These postwar years saw both the NCAA and NIT championships grow in participation, prestige, and profits. Although both tournaments shared Madison Square Garden and enjoyed similar progress, the NCAA and NIT grew independently. Yet their similarities forced comparisons and economic competition within the scarce but growing college basketball market. Once the 1951 scandal forced both tournaments to reevaluate their methods of operation, the NCAA and NIT became increasingly unwilling to cooperate with each other, and the relationship deteriorated. A closer inspection of the Red Cross charity games and their context provides a deeper insight into the foundation of these organizations’ coexistence before the 1951 gambling scandal gave each tournament a proverbial black eye. This complicated relationship between them reveals the hurdles that early NCAA bas- ketball tournament organizers faced and the decisions they made that helped their tournament eventually become the undisputed college basketball championship. The Creation of National Tournaments The growth and popularity of college basketball tournaments in the 1940s was preceded by shrewd public relations work a decade earlier. In 1933, Ned Irish, a metropolitan college basketball beat writer and future director of basketball at Madison Square Garden, arrived at Manhattan College to cover a local hoops showdown only to find the small gymnasium sold out. After sneaking into the gym through an open athletic department window, the entrepreneurial Irish realized that metropolitan college basketball had outgrown campus hoops facilities (“The Rumble,” 2006). The following season, he began arranging and promoting college basketball matchups at “The Garden” with as many as three games per night (Irish, 1939, p. 36). Both Irish and the participating schools saw their profits skyrocket from the Garden’s 18,000-plus seating capacity (Rosen, 1978). While many games Irish hosted in these one-night stands displayed local met- ropolitan rivalries, others became known as intersectional games—pitting a local team against a visiting squad from another region of the country. One particular 262 Carlson intersectional game in December 1936 brought Stanford coast-to-coast to play Long Island University (LIU), a team in the midst of a 42-game winning streak. Stanford’s Hank Luisetti captivated the New York crowd with his skill, speed, and innovative one-handed shooting, scoring 15 points as Stanford ended LIU’s streak, winning 45–31. The smitten press crafted Luisetti into a national hero for his efforts (Isaacs, 1975, p. 113). Increased national interest in college basketball—in part due to these inter- sectional games—spanned from New York City to Stanford and many places in between. Kansas City, a geographic midpoint between the proven basketball estab- lishment in New York and the innovative teams and players like Luisetti on the west coast, became an early basketball hotbed by hosting the Amateur Athletic Union’s (AAU) national championship during much of the 1920s and 1930s. Shortly after the AAU moved its tournament to Denver, and only months after Luisetti captivated the New York crowd with his one-handed jump shooting, Emil Liston, basketball coach at Baker (Kan.) University, created the first postseason col- lege basketball tournament. The inaugural 1937 National Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament Championship in Kansas City pitted eight teams from small schools in South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. The first tournament ended up being little more than a trial run for Liston’s ultimate goal of a larger and more nation-wide competition. In 1938, Liston’s dream of hosting a week-long 32-team tournament came to fruition. An estimated 15,000 total fans observed the beginnings of what became known as the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) tournament in 1940 and subsequently evolved into the crown jewel of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (Stooksbury, 2010, pp. 10, 12–13). While this tournament provided an introduction of postseason col- lege basketball national championships, its impact on the major college basketball landscape remained relatively small (Morris, December 14, 1938). Liston’s tournament in the American heartland paled in comparison with a new undertaking in “Gotham.” The Metropolitan Basketball Writers’ Association (MBWA) partnered with Ned Irish in 1938 to create a postseason invitation-only tournament to cash in on big-time college basketball in Madison Square Garden. Six squads from top schools received invitations from the MBWA to the inaugural NIT. Throughout three nights more than 45,000 fans paid admission to watch “The Garden’s” inaugural postseason gala, making the tournament an instant success (Irish, 1939, p. 36; Sheehan, 1938). Coaches around the country took notice of this National Invitation Tournament. “Phog” Allen, Kansas University coach, protégé of basketball’s founder James Nai- smith, and forefather of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) told an NIT official, “I think (the NIT) would be a very interesting experiment.” Allen also remarked, “I believe the effort will go a long ways toward nationalizing the game and doing away with provincialism and sectional play” (Kerkhoff, 1996, p. 122). Allen continued by complimenting the NIT’s main organizer and yet hinting at the sectional biases that plagued college basketball at the time, as he remarked, “Ned Irish has done a great job of building up basketball as a national sport in the minds of eastern people. Of course the western people have been conscious of this fact for years” (Kerkhoff, 1996, p. 123). The success of the first NIT inspired the NABC to host its own championship tournament. Shortly after Temple defeated Colorado to win the 1938 NIT crown, Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen initiated an NABC discussion to hold Tale of Two Tournaments 263 its own postseason tournament. Olsen argued four key points that may have belied a hint of jealousy among the coaches’ association toward the successful New York-based championship run by the writers’ association. First, he highlighted a demand for a decisive national champion and, although two national tournaments already existed in 1938, he felt that the NABC was a more appropriate sponsor of such an event.